Sean’s Blog

This weekend, I went ot PodcampOhio.  It was just a really awesome new media conference here in Columbus.  I learned a whole bunch and met some cool people.  I thought I would share some of the things I picked up for everyone who couldn’t attend.

• Blackbird - A lightweight Twitter client for the Blackberry.  No need to use text messages for tweets.  Not as pretty as twitterberry (which I’ve been using for a while now), but (as far as I can tell) faster.  I’ve switched to Blackbird.
• Multiple Loops In Wordpress.  Requires some Wordpress hacking, but this looks to be a really cool setup.  I am currently playing with this on my Wordpress test install.  Here are the link to Mitch’s slides (from Studionashvegas.com) on how to do it.
• Custom Fields in Wordpress - Also from the slideshow, how to add custom fields for a sort of graphical tagging ability.  Currently playing with this in dev as well.
• CMSMadeSimple - I’ve been looking into CMSs for a side project I am working on but the learning curve for Joomla seems a bit steep for my liking.  CMSMadeSimple seems like an awesome solution.
• JungleDisk - I’ve heard of this service offered by Amazon, but after hearing some of the praises for it, I am really considering using it for backup.
• Summize - A way to dig into twitter for subjects.  Just about everyone seemed to be using it.

I really had a good time and would like to thank all the presenters and organizers.  I was really surprised to find something like this in my home town.  Do some digging in yours and you may be surprised.

This weekend I was working to setup a new blog that I have been getting ready.  I had the wordpress installation all set and ready to go and I ordered the domain name from GoDaddy.com.  I then pointed the new domain at the directory on the webserver that would be hosting the new site and set it up as an addon domain.  Everything looked good until I tried to navigate to the site.

When I actually when to the new site (we’ll call it addon.com) it redirected me to the front page of seanelavelle.com.  Now I know that the new blog was set up correctly on the webserver at http://seanelavelle.com/addon/ and the DNS record should point to the subdomain as addon.seanelavelle.com, but going to that address also seemed to redirect me to the main site.  I was at a loss.

After talking to Bluehost support we determined the problem was not DNS, but the Wordpress installation.  More after the jump

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I finally got rid of the little Dell 720 printer I’ve been using.  It did kind of a crappy job, was slow and the ink ran out fast and was expensive.  So the other day I boght a big whopping multi function laser printer from Brother.

Brother actually supports Linux, so we can get the drivers which is nice.

The scanner setup was easy as well and I have included it at the bottom.

When you install your 7420, Hardy will detect it and set it up with the wrong printer drivers.

All you need to do for it to work correctly is got to Brother’s web site and download the Linux drivers.

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This week I went ahead and installed Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop and am generally pretty happy with it. As usual the install was painless quick from the upgrade button on the Update manager. I have been holding off on installing on my desktop because I want to make sure everything is running smoothly before I do a full switch.

One of my grips though is why Firefox 3 beta 5 was included. I like it and it seems to be pretty stable, but several of my plugins don’t work. Google notebook appears to work, but when you try to open it, it just pops open a new blank window. Google Gears is not yet supported in FF3. Several days ago the del.icio.us plugin was upgraded to work at least.

Here are a couple tips that I found useful doing this install:

• If you get a message when you try to run something through wine that says “failed to reserve range: xxx-xxx” try following the instructions here. Fixed it for me.
• Since I use Wine a lot, and by default wine is in a hidden folder (.wine) you can create a link for easier access. At the terminal in your home directory simply type “ln -s .wine wine” (without the quotes) and the will create a link to the folder that you can access without unhiding all directories.

I almost feel like I’ve been cheating for the past week. After a long time pimping MonkeyGTD, I’ve switched to Remember The Milk. I don’t think I am going to be switching back anytime soon either. After I wrote the post last week about staying organized away from the computer I started to look into applications that would work on my Blackberry.

Remember The Milk got some serious love on Lifehacker’s Best GTD applications and I though I would give it a try. I was pretty much immediately blown away. RTM had everything I was looking for and more.

First off, it is web based and free (for the non-pro version). It easily manages my tasks and has a mobile interface (this was the killer for MonkeyGTD in my book). It integrates with Google calendar and can send me messages when tasks are due.

One of my killer apps was to be able to jot down books I wanted to read and then have access to that list at the library. I simply created a list called Books, and started keeping track of books I wanted to read whenever I came across them. Then when I made a trip to the library, i just logged on top the mobile interface, pulled up my book list and grabbed several of them. I added a couple books on the fly at the library that I didn’t want to take out yet, but wanted to read in the future.

When I got home, I put in a task to return the library books due on the books due dates.

The Pro version has tools that will actually sync with the native Blackberry applications, but right now I don’t need that level of integration.

MonkeyGTD is a great tool, but I am going to be sticking with Remember The Milk. Give it a try. It rocks my geeky world.

Last week, when I installed the new theme for my site (Xplosive from BlogOhBlog), I noticed my stats in Wordpress.com Stats plugin dropped to 0. I thought this might just be a fluke, since every once in a while I will have a day where the visits are in the single digits. But by day two I was getting worried. Then I received a message from a friend using the Contact page and I knew something was up since it was still showing 0 hits.

I was still getting a page count via Google Analytics, but I love Wordpress.com Stats. The stats are (almost) real time, and it gives me just enough information for a quick over view of what has been going on. After some digging I found that this sometimes happens.

The fix is pretty easy, although it will require you to modify actual PHP pages (which is not that hard with the Wordpress Theme editor. I am assuming Wordpress 2.5 for this (although everything should work in earlier installations). Simply go to the Design Tab->Theme Editor. Now we will need to add the function in 3 places:

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I’ve generally gotten pretty good about keeping organized while I am at the computer.  Using MonkeyGTD and keeping my inbox clear have really helped.  But at least 75% of my time is spent not in front of the computer and without any of these tools I’m not much better then my previous unorganized self.  There are tons of methods on the web about keeping organized away from the computer.  But most involve notebooks or PDAs and i really don’t like to carry anything extra.

What I do always have is my phone.  Because I always carry it, making sure I have some important lists on it has really been a life saver.  One of my big annoyances is books I want to read.  I have a context in MonkeyGTD where I keep a list to read, but when I’m actually at the library, I generally don’t have it handy.  So what I’ve started doing is emailing myself a message and then copying it to a memo.

Now there are some obvious problems with this setup.  First off, you need to be able to access your email on your phone.  I have a Blackberry, so this isn’t a problem for me.  You also have to remember to send and update your lists.  There should be some way to automate it so when I enter something in whatever I am using, I won’t need to do these multiple steps.  I’ve tried brining up MonkeyGTD in the built in Blackberry browser, but it is completely unreadable.

I think I am going to try another task manager, even though I really like MonkeyGTD, that may handle mobiles a little better.

Work email has always been one of my real challenges.  I don’t have much choice in what program I use or the ability to really customize it.  So when I realized I needed to take control of my email, I needed something simple and flexible that was almost completely platform independent.  I needed a process since I couldn’t really use a tool.  I liked Merlin’s Inbox Zero process over at 43Folders, but it seemed like overkill for what I really needed.

So I came up with something quick and dirty that knocked out my inbox and has kept it clean for several weeks.

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I’ve been wanting to do a post about RSS readers for a while now and I couldn’t think of a what I really wanted to write about it. So I though I would try to cover the basics for people that aren’t familiar with RSS and then share some of my favorite tips on how to use it.

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When I started using Wordpress 2.5, I really liked some of the features. But I have been noticing little bits of weirdness here and there. The biggest one is that the Add/Edit Link button in the Visual Editor didn’t seem to work. I could put in whatever I wanted, but it would not create a link.

The workaround was easy enough, since you could just add the links within the HTML Editor and they worked fine, but switching editors felt like a pain. While I did not find a fix to the problem, I’ve found a workaround. Wordpress’s built in post editor is called TinyMCE. There is a Plugin that will add extra functionality to TinyMCE called TinyMCE Advanced.

I just installed this plugin and links seem to work fine. It also looks like it adds a bunch of features to the editor, but I have not had time to play with all of them yet.

So if you are having trouble with links in Wordpress 2.5, try installing the TinyMCE plugin. It seemed to work for me. Just make to clear your browser cache so you do not see the old editor.

Plugin available here